Eleven
Wow, that was a tough, tough run. Eleven miles yesterday, and as I said earlier - I just haven't had the mileage in lately to make 11 miles easy. I averaged a 10:02 pace, and had to work really hard for it. The last mile was just a killer. And I stopped twice during the run to walk for a tenth of a mile and regroup. Add to that wearing spanking new shoes, and I fought a couple of blisters near the end as well. I felt pretty shot afterwards.
We also had our first Podfast race, and that really added a lot of fun for me. In fact, a few runners had run on Saturday, so I had some time goals to chase. And were it not for those, I wouldn't have pushed myself nearly as hard as I did. I'm not in position yet to chase time goals, but in a few weeks as my fitness improves, I think that'll really be a useful training motivator. As it is, I placed 3rd/4th in the 5-person field in a tie with Chip, who's doing IMFL this year. How crazy is that - a perfect tie in an 11 mile race? To the second? Crazy. I was shooting for 2nd place (Ben, who's apparently lightning, blazed in 1:19:12, though he thinks 1:25 might be more accuate with some technical difficulties...was no way in hell I was catching that!), but Txskatemom flew in under the radar during my run with a strong 1:47:48.
Anyway, I think the next two weeks, maybe three, I'll not think about speed and focus more on the distance I have each week. This week again is STILL supposed to be cold as hell - seriously, it's like in Narnia, where we've been cursed with winter forever - but next week we have highs in the mid-30's. Heatwave, baby!
It's also my last week in runner's world - starting next Monday I'm officially in Half Ironman training. I'm excited for the return of the triathlete!
3 comments:
OK, ignorant as hell here. But equally curious. How does that whole Podfast thing work?
OK, I have to come clean. You know, I never did calibrate NanoMark, so my actual mileage is something closer to 10.7, not the full 11, so that 'splains how I was able to come in faster than you two. But if it helps at all, I was hurting something fierce yesterday from effort.
Great fun! When's the next one?
Teach - I have a post about the Podfast that you might want to check out. Basics - if you have an iPod nano, you can get this $30 extension thing called "Nike+iPod" that easily hooks to your shoe and your iPod. Then it tracks your distance and pace, and let's you upload that info to a nike website (nikeplus.com) that tracks everything really nicely. You can set up "virtual" races and challenges with anybody else with Nike+iPod, so that our times are being tracked against each other. When we all/each upload, our results tell us who won. It's really cool. Check out our discussions at www.transition3.com to see more. Make sense?
Tex - bah, I think you're just fast as hell, that's what I think. This week I have a 30 mile mileage goal that I'm interested in challenging, if anybody does. I think I'll write a quick post about it - check out transition3.com for the details - glad you enjoyed it, I did too!
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